


Slow Star, Quick Blade

by pelinal



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: (vague) mentions of child death, Bisexual Female Character of Color, F/M, Theological Bickering, death anxiety, italics used for 4 different purposes good fucking luck, lots of characters make cameos but not enough to warrant a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28803522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelinal/pseuds/pelinal
Summary: He notices for the first time that her mouth is a little crooked. A subtle scar or a damaged nerve tugging on her lip. Just a little.
Relationships: Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Shepard
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

Thane first steps foot on the ship with flecks of Dantius' blood still seeping into his shirt. Signing on with Commander Shepard, he reflects, as he settles his few belongings in the quarters assigned to him, may prove an irreversible mistake.  
  


Shepard herself seems willing to be cordial—those under her command, not so readily. She mills about on Illium for a few hours more, until the Normandy's AI notifies the crew that their commanding officer is on board again. Soon after, the ship takes off, ten times more smoothly than any vessel he's ever been on. He has to strain his hearing for the telltale hum of the drive core.  
  


After some time—an hour, two hours—the door hisses behind him, making way for a visitor.  
  


"Thane," says Shepard. She's traded her armour for something like a uniform—a black shirt, cargo pants, and metal-toed boots. The shirt hugs her upper body, putting her brown, muscled arms on display.  
  


"Shepard," says Thane.  
  


"I wanted to check on you," she begins, matter-of-factly. "Do you need anything more? Any concerns?"  
  


"None," he tells her. "Although—the one who received me—"  
  


"I have spoken with Jacob," she cuts in. "He is. . .he is not quite. . ." Shepard sighs and begins again, much more quickly, and—her translator modulates her words differently, making her voice higher and dryer.  _ "He's used to distrust. He distrusts Cerberus, and so do I, but we want to trust each other. We're all doing our best. Jacob—will come around soon enough."  
  
_

"Cerberus has a reputation for. . .valuing homogeneity," says Thane delicately. "I was uncertain whether he—took issue with my profession, or. . ."  
  


Shepard puffs out one cheek, a peculiarly human gesture. She blows out the breath she was holding and continues, with her translator still emitting that strange tone.  _ "I don't know," _ she admits.  _ "I don't know why he would be so offended by an assassin. Everyone on this ship is a murderer."  
  
_

"That is. . .an interesting take."  
  


_ "You don't agree? You might have ended more lives than I have," _ says Shepard grimly.  
  


"I beg to differ." He's going to regret this. Who's to say she won't simply have him spaced if he upsets her? "I am a weapon. That is my role. If I don't happen to cause the death of my target, my client will find something else."  
  


_ "So you murder on command," _ she shrugs. Her expression is unchanged, but for a twitch of her eyebrow that betrays—irritation, or real anger?  _ "Fine. I've spent ten years with the Alliance telling me who to shoot. That doesn't make me an angel."  
  
_

"Not an angel. Just a weapon." He folds his hands. "And now you command."  
  


_ "And that means I have blood on my hands, and you don't." _ Shepard frowns at him as if she were solving a difficult equation.  _ "Thane. I have seen you praying. Do the drell believe in an afterlife?"  
  
_

He smiles. "Some drell, perhaps. I among them."  
  


_ "What sort?"  
  
_

"As it sounds. Something to come after the end of life. Life following life, in all the forms and colors Kalahira shows us.”  
  


Shepard's jaw works.  _ "No heaven, then. No hell."  
  
_

"I have heard those terms, but you may need to refresh my memory."  
  


She laughs briefly, unkindly.  _ "The very short version is that heaven is where you go if you've lived a good life, where you spend eternity in bliss. Hell is the opposite. If you live badly, you suffer there forever. Not all humans believe that," _ she deigns to add,  _ "but I think I do."  
  
_

What a rigid belief. Terror and punishment. "And which is your fortune?" Thane asks.  
  


_ “I don’t know,” _ she says, turning her face away.  _ "Tell me something."  
  
_

"Ask."  
  


_ "Why do you pray? You're not asking your gods to spare you from punishment—if you're right, there's nothing to spare."  
  
_

Thane touches his chin, baffled. He hasn't spent much time, lately, in the company of humans—even if he had, he would be no less confounded by this one. "I ask. . .for guidance. They are companions to me, not prison wardens."  
  


_ "That’s pleasant," _ says Shepard.  _ "Then you're not a murderer—all of it is the responsibility of others. And no guilt, not even before God—or before the gods—and a lovely calm afterlife with no justice."  
  
_

"Shepard," he cuts in. "I am here at your request. You are free to dismiss me.”  


She rises and leaves without another word.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't see her again for a day and a half: the ship docks on Omega, and Shepard disembarks with a small squad—Thane is not part of it. Whatever business she has spans the better part of the day, and she comes back and clumps around the crew deck for a while (he can hear the heavy step of her boots), before giving the order to set off for the Far Rim.  
  


She comes to his door far more quietly, and when she steps inside, he sees why: she's taken off her shoes, choosing for some reason to shuffle about the ship in a pair of thick socks. Her toe peeks through on the right side.  
  


And she stands there, clutching her bright-red coffee cup. Awkward, he might say of another. Childlike. But Shepard exudes confidence even in her quiet moments. Thane almost feels like the intruder.  
  


"I didn't expect to see you here again so soon," says Thane. "Not after the way our first meeting went."  
  


"I'm here for that reason," she says. "I want to apologise."  
  


He lifts his hand and gestures for her to sit down.  
  


"Why do you sit with your back to the entrance?" she asks, sitting across from him, setting down her cup on that sterile, lifeless metal table.  
  


"That door is warning enough," Thane says offhandedly. "It would wake me from my sleep, even." Not that he would stand a hanar's chance in the desert, if Shepard and her people turned on him here. There is a strange comfort in that—why guard himself? Why lose sleep, now that he needs his rest so sorely?  
  


"Hm," says Shepard. "As I was saying, I wanted to apologise. There was no reason for me to start a fight, especially not on your very first day with us. I'm sorry for that."  
  


Thane scans her face. She seems sincere enough. "I appreciate your coming to speak with me."  
  


"Of course," says Shepard. "You were right, anyway. Er—" She shakes her head, takes a swig of her coffee, and rises.  
  


"You were injured on Illium," notes Thane, before she can leave.  
  


Shepard pauses. "I didn't tell anyone that. I went to the medbay after I spoke with you."  
  


"You were limping. Subtly, but all the same. I thought it might have been pain acting on your patience."  
  


"It wasn't that," says Shepard, giving him a fraction of a smile as she lingers in the doorway. "It's just that. . .I have had an eventful few months. I miss being comfortable." She blinks, as if she's surprised herself with this admission, and turns to leave. "Good night, Thane."  
  


He should sleep. He should let her sleep. But he wants to keep her there a little longer, in her baggy nightshirt, in her tattered socks, wearing a weak, frazzled smile. "Comfortable?"  
  


She sighs and sits down again. The coffee cup trembles in her hands. Nerves? Cold? "You know why I'm working with Cerberus?"  
  


"In order to eliminate the Collector threat." But if she posed the question, there is more.  
  


"Well—" she says. "Two and a half years ago, my ship crashed and I was spaced. I suffocated. Miranda says that I spent two years as a corpse. Cerberus brought me back from the dead. That's what they say."  
  


"You. . .disbelieve it?"   
  


"I don't know how a person—how—how I can be dead and then. . .alive. I think I can be a—could be a clone. Or an AI, like EDI. If I'm myself, where was I for two years? Where was my soul? Where did I go?"  
  


"Sometimes the mind sleeps," he suggests, "while the body is elsewhere."  
  


"Sleeping. . ." Shepard smiles and toys with her earring. A little golden hoop, too small to be obtrusive in battle. "Can I show you something, Thane? I think you will understand what I mean."  
  


"Go ahead," he tells her, curious despite himself.  
  


Shepard digs around in her pockets for something and finally pulls out a small blue object. She presses a button—oh. A holo of a human woman in fatigues, with dark curls spilling over her shoulders. Her lips are painted a deep red, or black. Likely red. The woman is touching her cheek, grinning at someone out of view.  
  


"A. . .relative?" Thane ventures.  
  


Shepard laughs. "She's me. This was me in '81 or '82."  
  


He looks between her and the holo. Her copious hair is gone, obviously, shaved, and her face is thinner and greyer now. The woman in the holo has thick black eyebrows; Shepard's are sparse, barely sprouting. And her eyes—they had escaped his notice before, but next to this hologram Shepard, the real version looks exhausted beyond belief. (Humans bruise as a response to blunt force trauma—the blood, blue or black, shows through the skin. Thane has always found it disquieting, but he watches Shepard with interest: it appears that both her eyes are faintly bruised.)  
  


"Look here," Shepard continues. She rotates the holo and zooms in to observe the hand on her cheek, and her ear nearby. "My fingers on my left hand were joined. See? Like yours."  
  


The last two fingers of the unfamiliar woman are fused up to the first knuckle. "I didn't think that was a human trait."  
  


"It isn't. I never had the gene therapy, so I had a lot of little—look. My ear," she says, pointing at the ear of the holo, and then at her own ear. "It was folded. Some babies are born like this, but they grow out of it. I didn't."  
  


Thane narrows his eyes. The holo's ear is misshapen, like the rubbery leaf of a plant. But Shepard's seems like a perfectly average human ear. "You had it corrected, then?"  
  


"Cerberus corrected it," says Shepard. "Do you understand what I mean?" She zooms out the holo again and looks at it, fondly, as if it were the image of a lost loved one. "I miss this woman. I miss being in my body."  
  


"'Being in'." He considers. "It is best when the mind and the body are whole. . .and together."   
  


"Isn't it." Shepard gives him a long look. Whatever she sees makes her wince, and gaze into her coffee instead. "In any case. All this was to say. . . I've been—shaken, since I woke up. On a station of Cerberus somewhere. I'm not exactly sure which—what I can believe, so—our discussion yesterday made me uncomfortable. I'd like to talk more, when we have the chance."  
  


"I am always here, Shepard."  
  


"Salomé," she says. "Please."  
  


"Salomé," repeats Thane. He hadn't known her first name—very rarely does a vid or a news outlet use it. It's a good name. Sibilant. Inoffensive to the ear.  
  


When she stands to leave again, the golden earring she had been playing with falls to the floor. She clicks her tongue and mutters something Thane's translator doesn't pick up as she stoops to find it.  
  


Salomé sets her cup on the table, and busies herself trying to attach the little hoop again. Her hands tremble, as before—the more she struggles to steady them, the less they cooperate.  
  


"Shit," she says, finally, closing the earring in her hand. With her other hand, she picks up her cup and starts to leave.  
  


"Let me try," Thane finds himself offering. Salomé gives him an odd look, but she holds out the earring to him. He glances at it, trying to parse out the mechanism. Something like a pin that goes through the ear, and a clasp to hold it in place. Simple enough.  
  


"Thank you," mumbles Salomé, as he leans close. "I'm still in the. . .I'm still learning these fine movements, again. You need to know that this doesn't affect me in the field; I use biotics. And a shotgun," she adds, grinning.  
  


Her breaths breeze along the side of his neck as she speaks. Before long, he's poked the pin through and clicked the clasp in place. "I believe. . .I have it," he says, cautiously.  
  


"Thank you," she repeats, touching the earring lightly to make certain.   
  


It occurs to Thane that, just as she is seeing him, past his peak, on the verge of a steep decline, so he is seeing her: a woman back from the dead, a quaking, hollow-faced version of her former self. "Good night, Salomé," he says.   
  


She grips her coffee cup a little tighter. "Good night, Thane."


	3. Chapter 3

Captain Bailey is numbering off the many gruesome ways for an unsupervised child to die on the Citadel. He may as well be reciting his personnel ID.  


_ You call that boy a rat? _ Salomé had asked, frowning.  
  


And Bailey had shrugged. - _ 'Duct rat'. Kids whose parents are out of the picture, or might as well be. They run around the Presidium—play in the air ducts.  
  
_

_ That is dangerous.  
  
_

_ -Yep. _

Now, listening to his stories of small corpses in the hidden corners of the station, Salomé appears to be regretting her curiosity. She has crossed her arms defensively over her chest, has turned away. Acid. Propeller blades. Long falls. Her mouth begins to quiver and, to Thane's great surprise, silent tears run down her cheeks, breaking on the ridges and hollows of her scarred face.  
  


Bailey pauses his tale to lift a paper cup to his lips, and nearly inhales his water when he catches sight of Salomé. "Well, hell, Commander—I didn't think you'd bat an eye. I'll quit the shop talk if it puts you off."  
  


"I, ah. . ." Salomé shakes her head and attempts to wipe her face with a gauntleted hand. Her mouth works, but she seems to have trouble deciding what to say.  
  


"Kindly point us to Mouse," Thane interrupts.  
  


"Sure," says Bailey. "Sure."  
  


In silence, they weave through the Zakera markets.   
  


"I won't be distracted again," says Salomé at last.  
  


"Good," says Thane. Although. . .perhaps that was callous. "We can speak later," he adds, "if you would like. But—"  
  


"Now, the mission," she agrees.  
  


Salomé is as good as her word, blazing through the Citadel with a singular focus. She pulls no punches in her interrogation; she tails Kolyat's turian mark soundlessly through the Wards.   
  


She was kind to Mouse. That is her strategy; to be perfectly charming one moment, and in the next to carry herself like a hardhearted mercenary, all according to her estimation of the target. But she had to know how quickly a boy like Mouse—a duct-rat, an overlooked, spotty-faced young scavenger who hides or flees from his enemies—would have responded to a threat.   
  


Nevertheless, she took her time about comforting him, and convincing him that no one would come after him—when flashing her weapon or even dealing the boy a blow would have saved time.  
  


And when Kolyat is standing over the turian with his gun shaking in his hands, Salomé shows him the same grace.  
  


"Drop it," she says wearily, holding up her empty palms, even as a roomful of C-Sec guards raise their weapons. "Please, Kolyat."  
  


He doesn't. But his grip wavers. Thane knows the look of a hunter who has given up on a kill.

* * *

The Normandy stalls in the docking bay for a long while after Thane has boarded. At last EDI's announcement comes— _ Commander Shepard is aboard _ —and the ship jumps the Widow relay.  
  


Salomé has barely taken the time to change out of her armour; she is wearing her sleek compression suit when she comes to find him. Even if she weren't, her gauntlets have marked her arms, and her forehead is damp from the heavy helmet.   
  


"How. . ." she begins, already taking a seat—but another notion strikes her. "Is it OK that I'm here?"  
  


Thane blinks.   
  


"You prefer to be with your thoughts?" clarifies Salomé.  
  


"I. . .spent the past few hours in thought. That is sufficient." He smiles at her to make his point. "I'd like it if you stayed, Salomé."  
  


She nods and leans closer, resting her chin in her hand. "How was it?"  
  


"We, ah. . ." Thane takes a long breath. "It will take more than an afternoon's conversation."  
  


"It's  _ hard _ when the father leaves," says Salomé. "It's so hard." But she isn't accusing him—she isn't even looking in his direction; her eyes are downcast.   
  


Silence. Salomé clears her throat and resettles herself in her chair.  
  


"It's good," she adds, looking up, "that you returned for him."  
  


"While I still could," he says for her.  
  


She gives him an apologetic smile. "It will be good," she repeats. "It will be good for him."  
  


He smiles back. How earnest she is. "I can only hope."  
  


"It will be. It will be good now, and. . .it will be easier after." Salomé shakes her head. "Not easier. . ." She clicks her tongue and starts over. Again, her translator does something strange to her voice.  _ "Closure. That's the word I was looking for."  
  
_

"You seem to struggle for words," Thane remarks, unable to stifle his curiosity. For good measure, he touches his neck to indicate a translator.  
  


_ "Oh. Earth languages,"  _ she says, waving her hand dismissively.  _ "I'm not very good at the language the Alliance likes to use. I didn't know you could tell the difference."  
  
_

"It's subtle," he assures her. "I wouldn't have heard it if I wasn't listening for it."  
  


_ "There's no CO here to shout at me, anyway." _ Salomé grins.  _ "This was a good thing. Are you going to keep in touch with him?"  
  
_

"If he's willing." He looks her in the face. She's smiling broadly—her eyes are a little wet. "He's angry with me."  
  


_ "Of course," _ she says. Her smile doesn't fall an inch.  _ "How old is he?"  
  
_

"Eighteen this year."  
  


Salomé nods.  _ "I'm glad we could stop him. And I'm glad that he has you back."  
  
_

"I—should thank you for your help." It should have been the first thing out of his mouth when she came in.  
  


_ "Thank you for asking my help," _ she says graciously.  _ "It was my honor. Even if you and Captain Bailey saw me sniveling."  
  
_

Ah. That. "Are you—well, Salomé?"  
  


She sighs. _ "I'm fine. I just don't like the thought of. . .when children—they're so easily. . ." _ Her voice chokes.  _ "I've seen enough things in my time—really—evil things, but I can't take it with the little ones."  
  
_

"I sympathize," he says. There's no reason for him to do more than nod and listen, but the woman across from him has tears in her eyes. Great dark eyes, sometimes shot through with scarlet. Cerberus optics. "I. . .intellectually, I understand that Kolyat is almost a man. But when I look at my son, I see him as he was."  
  


Salomé stands abruptly.  _ "Thane, I'm going to leave. If my crew sees me crying. . ." _ She sniffs and makes what may be a gesture of prayer.  __ "But this was nice. Tell me if anything else comes up."  
  


"Of course," is all he can manage before she hurries away, still rubbing the gauntlet-welts out of her arm.


	4. Chapter 4

Tuchanka is a snakepit. Arid—which is good for his breathing—but a snakepit all the same. Once they have left the proving grounds, Grunt presents himself to the krogan chief, practically bouncing on his feet with excitement.  
  


He doesn't see that all the blood has drained from Salomé's face.  
  


"Shepard," says Thane under his breath.  
  


Salomé gives him a wide-eyed look. Urdnot Wrex, whose hearing is sharper than it seems, chuckles. "Give her a minute. The threshers will do that."  
  


"You knew," says Salomé flatly.   
  


"You did fine," shrugs Wrex. "Better than fine. You took the damn thing down!" A round of shouts goes up from the members of Urdnot.  
  


She only shakes her head. The moment Grunt has finished his dealings with his new clan, she herds them back onto the Normandy, staggering a little.  
  


Several crew members greet their commander; she passes by as if she hadn't heard them. And perhaps she hasn't. Vakarian and Dr. Chakwas are chatting in the mess when they catch sight of her.  
  


"How did it go, Commander?" calls Chakwas.  
  


Silently, still trembling, Salomé takes a bottle of water from the fridge and makes for the elevator.  
  


Chakwas raises one eyebrow, and turns to Thane for an answer.  
  


"We were asked to take part in a proving ceremony," he says lamely, "so that Grunt could be sworn into a clan."  
  


"Hell of a ceremony," says Vakarian. "What'd they do to her to get her like that?"  
  


"WE KILLED A THRESHER MAW," bellows Grunt at the top of his lungs, having barrelled onto the crew deck to spread word of his accomplishment.  
  


Chakwas and Vakarian exchange a look.  
  


"Bloody, bloody hell," says Chakwas, shaking her head. "Garrus, would you go and—"  
  


"Yep. The krogans must be itching to boot us off their irradiated rock." Vakarian sighs to himself. "I guess Joker could float us around the DMZ for a while."  
  


For the next few hours, the ship circles. A few disgruntled crew members suggest docking on Illium, or at the Citadel, but Joker wants to hear the word from Salomé herself—and Salomé has barricaded herself inside her quarters.  
  


_ "Thane," _ says someone. The ship's AI materializes—a little blue projection that always makes him think of a swamp mushroom.  
  


"EDI," he says politely.  
  


_ "The Commander has asked to see you."  
  
_

He frowns. "And where, exactly, is my presence requested?"  
  


_ "The captain's quarters can be found on the first floor. . ." _ And EDI rattles off directions, displaying a hologram map for his convenience. Then, tactfully, she disappears.  
  


Several thoughts compete for a place in his mind. 

One: Salomé distrusts EDI and has never asked her for a thing, not even to take a message. 

Two: having granted that EDI isn't malfunctioning—or malicious—why ask for Thane? And why in her quarters, when she so often makes it her habit to come to him?  
  


Despite his misgivings, he takes the elevator up to Deck 1. When he passes through the crew deck, Vakarian glances after him with—something like apprehension. As if Salomé was, herself, a thresher maw, and Thane on the point of entering her lair, never to return.  
  


This is a ridiculous thought, but he cannot shake it from his mind as he steps inside.   
  


"Thank you for coming," says Salomé, in a voice so hoarse it barely exists. She tugs on her shirt—the same one she wears to sleep, a battered N7 tee several sizes too large for her.  
  


"How can I be of service?" asks Thane. This is perhaps a blunt question, but he is unsettled, both by her long absence and by her bloodshot eyes.  
  


"Why are you here, you mean." She smiles. "I don't know. My instinct told me that I wanted you here."  
  


"Ah."  
  


"Thank you," she says, sitting down on the sofa, "for your help with the thresher. No one else would have kept his calm long enough to kill it."  
  


"It was a large target," says Thane. Imposing as it was, it doesn't even rank on his list of challenging kills. "More than anything else, I suspect it was a psychological exercise."  
  


Salomé laughs loudly, abruptly, and covers her mouth. "I think you're right." She casts her gaze about the room. "I'm just. . .glad that Grunt is happy. Do you think he noticed? That I—" She gestures hopelessly at herself. "—that I wasn't firing?"   
  


"I doubt it," he says. It is the truth.  
  


"Preoccupied by the fight."  
  


Thane folds his hands. "A dangerous practice, to be so swept up and lose the periphery."  
  


"He will  _ learn," _ says Salomé defensively. "He's clever."  
  


"I didn't intend—"  
  


"I know," she grins. "And I shouldn't, er. . . _ coddle him. He can take care of himself."  
  
_

"Certainly," says Thane. Her jumping between languages has ceased to faze him.  
  


She throws her head back, slings one leg over the other and blows out a long, shaky sigh.  
  


He sits down beside her, for the lack of anything better to do.  
  


"Salomé," he begins. "The crew is waiting for your orders."  
  


"I know," she says, on the verge of tears. "Just a few more minutes. And I will forget this. Have I thanked you for your help, Thane?"  
  


"You have," he tells her, smiling despite himself.  
  


Salomé laughs a real laugh this time, a bright one, and she wipes her eyes with her forearm. She stands up and leads him further into the spacious cabin.  
  


There is a vast array of drawings— _ paper _ drawings—on the wall, above her bed. Some of them are colorful, others are in black and grey.   
  


One catches his eye: a childish sketch of a furry, four-legged animal. He touches the paper, flattening a corner that had begun to curl. "My son made drawings like these as a little boy."  
  


"Oh," says Salomé.  
  


"Whose is it? That is, if. . ." A young cousin, he thinks. Or a niece. For that matter, she might have a child herself—although he has cause to doubt that.  
  


"It's mine," she says, and when he turns to her, she flushes deeply and refuses to look him in the eye.  
  


"A powerful act, to keep these things close," says Thane, acting with all the grace and intelligence of a dead jellyfish. "Arashu charges us to honor our child-selves always."  
  


Salomé beams, red-faced—with delight? Or just with shame? "That is. . .a very beautiful thought. . .but this drawing is from last week."  
  


"—ah." Ah. He adjusts the collar of his jacket, searching for a way out of the mess he's made, but there is none.  
  


"It's OK," she says. "Mordin told me that it might help with my—my— _ coordination, you know? Fine motor skills. _ The first one I made, he made fun of it. A bit. But it's hanging in his lab."  
  


"I'll watch for it," promises Thane.  
  


"If you like." Salomé shakes her head. "So that was embarrassing, but it's not what I wanted you to see. Look." She points at a different drawing—a skillful, lifelike rendering of a storeroom. The closer he looks, the more the drawing astounds him; there are tiny serial numbers on the crates. The glass window gleams.   
  


The name in the corner, scrawled in square, belligerent letters, reads 'GRUNT'.  
  


"Impressive," he says.  
  


"He's so clever!" she bursts out, as if he had disagreed with her. "I would like to be a better. . .battlemaster to him. Not so many. . .not so weak in some things."  
  


"Thresher maws and children," says Thane, a little dryly. "It could always be worse."  
  


Salomé takes his hands in hers—her hands are broad and warm, and speak of strength. She gives him such a look of gratitude that he half-wants to disappear into some nearby shadow. Instead he holds her gaze, and he keeps still. Never mind that their joined hands are unpleasantly clammy—never mind that his pulse is skyrocketing.   
  


He notices for the first time that her mouth is a little crooked. A subtle scar or a damaged nerve tugging on her lip. Just a little.


	5. Chapter 5

"Siha," Thane murmurs.  
  


She stirs. Her short hair bristles against his arm.  
  


"Salomé," he says, louder.  
  


Gasping a little, as if she had been underwater, Salomé sits bolt upright—then she realizes where she is and forces herself to breathe.  
  


A bright rash has bloomed on her cheek, along the line of her neck, her entire right arm, her breast—everywhere her skin has touched his.  
  


"I wasn't," she mumbles. "Was I sleeping?"  
  


"You asked me to wake you when our ETA came to two hours." He smiles, although—the sight of her, blinking the sleep out of her dark eyes, slowly taking up her burden again—she is a hook in his heart.  
  


Salomé touches her shoulder and winces. "Do I have. . .yes I do," she concludes, before Thane can speak, and reaches for the silver tube of ointment on her nightstand. "I'm going to ask you something very silly," she warns.  
  


"Ask, siha."  
  


"The Collectors. . .in two hours, we are going to land at the base of the Collectors. There is a very good chance that none of us will come back. This is all true?"  
  


"It is," says Thane.  
  


She pauses, with the ointment still gleaming on her cheek, and lets her hand fall, as if it had suddenly become too heavy for her.  
  


Wordlessly, he sits beside her on the edge of the bed, takes the small silver tube from her, and begins to tend to her shoulder.  
  


The thought that plagues her, as it plagues him, is 'I don't want to die'. If the gods are kind, she will keep it to herself.   
  


She could lose her nerve, after all—not that she will, but she could—turn the ship around, or, if the crew object, commandeer an escape pod. Come to rest on some unfrequented world and live out her life.   
  


There is no running, no flying, no hiding away from a sick body. Passing around this thought in his mind has not worn away its sharp edges, and when his gaze falls on the soft, scarred plane of her back, he finds himself as bitter and fearful as a boy. Blaming her for his own cowardice.  
  


"Have you ever seen a dog?" asks Salomé.  
  


"Have—what?"   
  


"A dog," she repeats. "They are a bit like wolves."  
  


Thane knows what a wolf is; the four-legged Earth animal she is always drawing, with limited success. "All right," he allows.  
  


"I think we should get a dog."  
  


"I—" He struggles for words. "Salomé—"  
  


"Not  _ now," _ she says, waving her hand. "After this mission, I mean. When we take a long vacation together."  
  


Salomé turns her head to look at him, and he understands—she knows as well as he does that none of these things are likely to happen. But her unsteady smile is a plea. Not to break her of the illusion.  
  


"I might even retire," she goes on. "What do you think? Somewhere hot and dry."  
  


"Marrakech?" he recalls, halfheartedly. More than once, the two of them have sat on this bed and combed through extranet sites meant for tourists. Most of their destinations are on Earth: great singing dunes in Doha; rocky flatlands in the Atacama; vast, bloody sunsets in Phoenix.  
  


"Marrakech, if you like," agrees Salomé. "But a city. A place to rest. Have children. Have a daughter."  
  


What is the gentlest answer? "When you begin your family, my siha, you know that all my thoughts will go with you."  
  


Salomé gives him a startled, pained look—but, practical as she is, she collects herself quickly. "You're right. Not the time for nonsense."  
  


"Not nonsense," says Thane. "But not the time."  
  


"Mm." She rises and gathers up her scattered clothes. "What name would you choose?" she seems unable to stop herself from adding, as she pulls her sports bra over her head. "How did you choose for your son?"  
  


"It was Irikah's," he says, before he can think about it.  
  


"Ah," smiles Salomé. "Kolyat Krios. It's a hard name." Now in her underthings, she casts a glance at her thermal suit and decides against it for now. She sits beside him again. "'Thane' is softer."  
  


"I disagree." His is an old name—not Kahje, but Rakhana. Thane. A shard of flint, or the fang of a snake. Although. . ."Softer, perhaps, when you speak it."  
  


"What? 'Thane'. That's how I say it."  
  


The fondness he feels for her then is excruciating. Something—something in her own speech, or the influence of her native language, transforms his name, on her lips, to 'Sane'.  
  


"Oh—" Salomé rolls her eyes. "I know." She thrusts her tongue between her teeth, and very deliberately sounds out:  _ "Thane."  
  
_

"Hmm."  
  


"Well?" She nudges him. "Is that better?"  
  


"'Better' is a relative term," he says. "Closer to my tongue, but farther from yours." Truthfully, he prefers her version, her 'Sane'. Names are the one thing a translator won't touch—one instance where he can glimpse her voice as it truly is.  
  


She lays her head on his shoulder, although her cheek is still painfully red.  
  


"You'll make it worse," he reminds her.   
  


"Then I'll make it worse," she mumbles, and throws her arm around him.


	6. Chapter 6

This apartment never feels exactly right. Some days it is cramped, and on other days it is too large. Today it is enormous, and blank, and empty.  
  


Thane has had to fight the urge to stay in bed, because his assigned nurse—a gangly human boy at the beginning of his residency, Amir something—was due in the morning, dropping off an organizer full of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and all the rest.  
  


_ Same time next week, Mr. Nuara? _ Amir had said, showing his large front teeth as he smiled—as if Thane had any choice in the matter.  
  


Not for the first time today, he does an extranet search for Salomé Shepard—then, hopelessly, for Salomé Vauquelin—and nothing. Nothing, except the same ANN segment from three months ago, reporting that Commander Shepard was being held in Alliance custody.  
  


He should send her something.  
  


Before her extradition to Earth—in the days after the Omega 4 mission, when the crew were astonished and elated to find themselves still alive—Salomé had asked him to help her decide on a name, for the day she might have a family. A son or a daughter, it didn't matter to her.   
  


Since then, Thane has spent far too many hours on various name sites intended for new parents, human as well as drell. He has, after much deliberation, compiled a shortlist.  
  


He sits down at the dinner table, taking it for an arm-rest—without support, his arm will tremble while he records, and the resulting video will be a mess.  
  


In addition, the communication networks the Alliance has set aside for his purpose are slow, and the size cap on any files being transmitted is absurdly small: even with the camera on his omni-tool set to its lowest resolution, he'll have a few minutes to speak and no more.  
  


Thane breathes deeply and taps 'record'.  
  


"Salomé—" he begins. His eye falls on the scribbled list of names.  
  


_ Salomé. If there is a name he loves, it is hers. Has her hair grown, the way she was hoping? Have the scars on her face finally begun to close? She must be frustrated to no end if—as he suspects—all communications are being kept from her. Hopefully she has company—any kind. Is her drawing any better? Are her hands surer? And—the Alliance must be treating her with decency, mustn't they? She is their face, after all. Surely, at least, she no longer has to suffer coffee shortages.  
  
_

He squeezes his eyes shut, shaking himself out of his reverie. Part memory, part hope.   
  


37 minutes have elapsed.    
  


Sighing, he deletes the video and stands up to make tea. Tomorrow, as Amir likes to say, is another day.


	7. Chapter 7

Salomé walks into the lobby. This is nothing new.  
  


He has seen her come in dozens of times, sometimes multiple times a day, shapeshifting. One day in her full armor, another day in civilian clothes. Once in an evening gown. (Yesterday his thoughts were crueler than usual, and gave him Salomé in hospital scrubs, with a stethoscope about her neck.)  
  


This time, though, she looks him in the eye, and she walks toward him—then she takes his hands in hers, and he feels the calluses between her fingers, and he finally understands that his brain couldn't have possibly fabricated her.  
  


"Hey," she murmurs, her smile disappearing as she follows his gaze. "Hey."  
  


"I love you," says Thane, with difficulty, and touches her cheek. "You'll have to forgive me. I thought I was dreaming."  
  


Salomé shakes her head, as if the idea was ridiculous. "Be calm," she adds, touching her own jaw. This is a piece of data he once trusted her with: his own biggest tell, a muscle in his jaw that tics when he is particularly agitated.  
  


Why should he be agitated, now that she is here? Sheepishly, he touches the twitching muscle, and she grins.  
  


So he kisses her harder than he had intended, seizes her by the back of her neck, feeling the short hairs there. She smiles against him; her mouth tastes of menthol gum. He parts her legs with his thigh and nudges her just there, so that she gasps and grabs the front of his shirt.  
  


"We should—we should—we should sit," manages Salomé. Unsteadily, she takes a seat, guiding herself with her hands. Her face is flushed, and she is casting wary looks about the lobby.  
  


"I'm sorry," says Thane, trying to catch his breath discreetly as he sits beside her. "This is more public than either of us would prefer."  
  


"It doesn't matter," she says. "I love you, and it's been such a long time. . .hm." She pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes and stares at the tiled floor—checking whether or not her vision is spiraling. "My god. OK."  
  


"Salomé," he begins, touching her knee.  
  


"It's OK," she repeats, and then reaches out and brushes his lip with the pad of her thumb. "Am I seeing right, or do you have—blue?"  
  


Of course. Sometimes, in the mornings, his lips are bluish—a result of chronically low oxygen levels. It's no longer a point of vanity, but Salomé will worry. Gently, Thane moves her hand away. "A recent development," he says. "It tends to clear up in the course of. . .after PT."  
  


"PT? Ah—for your breathing," says Salomé, interrupting herself. "How is it?"  
  


He takes her hands, hoping to remind her of those endless evenings in his quarters on the Normandy. "Repetitive. I met a human biotic—a friend of yours."  
  


"Alenko," she says, in a tone suggesting that the word 'friend' was poorly chosen. "Then he's on his feet. Good."  
  


'On his feet'. Technically speaking, Alenko is on his feet—though trembling, breathless, and tethered to an IV pole. "He won't see any combat in the near future."  
  


"Hm." Salomé puffs out one cheek—a gesture that is peculiarly hers—and sighs. "I had a mail from him, too. A few weeks ago. Asking me to visit."  
  


"It took you less than a day to come to me," Thane points out, holding back a smile.  
  


"Because it's  _ you," _ she says, matter-of-factly. "I could have been in the Andromeda, I would have come."  
  


He has the urge to kiss her again, but his heart is still hammering, and she will want to be lucid. Not to wobble out of the hospital seeing colors that don't exist.  
  


Instead, Thane clears his throat. "He would appreciate the company, I think."  
  


Salomé makes a disinterested sound. "I'm sure."  
  


"Siha. I can't claim to know your history, but a long hospital stay is. . .tedious, even when there are visitors."  
  


"Has your son come?" she asks, willfully ignoring his point.  
  


"He is here often. We have. . .he has an apartment on the station."  
  


"Not you?"  
  


"I am here," he says, offhandedly, as if he was a tourist and not a hospice patient.   
  


She nods slowly, passing a hand over her eyes. "I'd like to see how he's doing."  
  


"I'll let him know," promises Thane. "Perhaps the three of us could sit down together."  
  


"Please," says Salomé. "I'd like that."  
  


In the edge of his vision, there is movement. The receptionist is returning from her break—or another has come to take over her shift. In either case, it is past two.  
  


"Siha," he says. "Salomé. I. . .am expected elsewhere."  
  


"PT or lunch?" she asks—as ever, sharp as a knife-blade.  
  


"In that order," he answers, and the corner of his mouth lifts. "I would prefer not to cause a delay."  
  


"OK." She squares her shoulders, blinking away tears. "I can't stay. We're going to the Pra—"  
  


"I will be here when you return," he breaks in. "If you can send word ahead—even better." She must be undertaking something unbelievable. (She also must know that the Citadel is full of eyes and ears.)  
  


"I'll try," says Salomé. "What was that name? Tan. . ."  
  


"Tannor Nuara."  
  


"Tannor Nuara," she repeats. "OK." She dusts herself off and stands.  
  


"Before you go, siha." He takes her by the shoulders, seeing her properly for the first time since she came in. She looks better than in his memory—she looks  _ well. _ Her hair has grown: her eyebrows are thick, and there are dark hairs on her forearms. The savage web of her scars is fading. She has put on weight, the hollowness has gone out of her face.  
  


Salomé laughs a little. "What?"  
  


"I love you," he says, by way of an explanation.   
  


"I'll come back as soon as I can."  
  


Thane smiles and fixes the rumpled collar of her shirt. "I know."    
  


She leaves. He says a prayer for her.

**Author's Note:**

> the title comes from "Under Pressure" by Nina Puro!


End file.
